The “Secular” We vs. The “Religious” We: On Nationalist Theopolitics

CFS lecture by Yaacov Yadgar, Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford, UK.

The lecture is open to all and all are welcome

Abstract:

The paper discusses the varying ways in which national, allegedly secular, and traditional, allegedly religious social imaginaries cope with diversity within the collectives these imaginaries represent/construct. The paper shows that contrary to some prevalent (ideological) arguments that present modern, secular nationalism or nation-statism as more tolerant and inclusive than the traditional and religious imaginaries that preceded these modern forms of collectivity, the reverse is sometimes the case: Traditional forms of belonging to a collectivity can show themselves to be more inclusive, tolerant and welcoming to diversity in terms of imagining and constructing the group’s identity. Ultimately, the paper speaks for a rehabilitation of “tribalism” as an antidote to the abusive “melting pot” project of certain renditions of nation-statism. While the arguments are general in tone and scope, the paper will focus primarily on the case of Jewish tradition, and Zionism as a form of Jewish nationalism and nation-statism. It would show how this nationalism has tended to find Jewish diversity — a central feature of Jewish history — threatening, while Jewish “religious" tradition has been — traditionally — built around a sense of multiplicity and multivocality within the tradition. The two imaginaries — while speaking to the same collective — thus each render it in rather contrasting ways, allowing or denying variations within the national “we”.